Man survived without food for 382 days

Most people can survive without food for a few weeks, but eventually starvation will kill them…or not.

Determining the limits a person can live without vital resources fluctuate. It can live without water for at least a week, but without food may vary.

Angus Barbieri did not eat anything for 382 days until the end of the day of 22 July 1966. In the case of Barbieri there are very few documents, some old newspapers and a medical report published in Postgraduate Medical Journal in 1973.

According to the report, Barbieri went to the department of medicine at the Royal Infirmary of Dundee, Scotland, a year before the event, to ask for help. At that moment the young man was terribly fat, according to doctors. He weighed 206 kg, and doctors asked him to give up food for a few days. After that the days became weeks and Barbieri wanted to continue the program. Absurd and also a risky job for more than 40 days is considered extremely dangerous, but he wanted to reach his target weight of 81 kilos, so he kept the diet.

The man kept diet largely at home, going to the hospital for analysis and verification. Blood tests showed that it was functional although he was hypoglycemic, fact which assured the doctors that the young man did not eat at all.

Barbieri sometimes consumed vitamins during the diet, including potassium and sodium supplements. He’s been allowed to drink coffee, tea, mineral water. He said that sometimes he put a little milk or sugar in his coffee or tea, especially in the last weeks of the diet. At the end of the job he has reached the required weight of 81 kilograms.

Scotsman’s post is an extreme example of starvation, but there was a man named Dennis Galer Goodwin, who went on hunger strike for 385 days to support his innocence when he was imprisoned for rape. After 385 days he was force-fed through a tube.